PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has threatened to take action against chiefs and senior government officials he accused of leasing their lands to white ex-farmers disposed under the country’s land reforms.
Addressing a conference for the traditional leaders in Masvingo Friday, Mugabe said he was aware some chiefs were being used as fronts by white ex-farmers returning to the country.
“We do not want to end up repossessing some of the farms that we gave you under the land reform programme, but we know a lot of things that are happening on the farms.
“We know a lot of things that some of you do not even know and it’s not chiefs alone who are fronting for the white men there are even some senior Government officials who are being used by whites. Beware!’’
Mugabe said the country’s land reform programme – widely condemned as unjust and racist by the West – was part of a programme aimed at giving Zimbabweans complete control of the country.
“When we first took our land from the whites we knew that we were on the first stage of transferring wealth from whites to blacks and mabhunu celebrated kuti vari kutora mapurazi oga vanhu vatema asi isu we have the minerals and control the industries,” he said.
“We knew exactly that we were on the first stage of taking our resources after we had educated our people from 1980 when we started building schools in all parts of the country.
“We now have many educated people and we should now move to assume total control of our natural resources. We can now stand on our own. Tinokwanisa kuzvitonga iye zvino chaizvo izvo,’’he said.
